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A s a manager, are you struggling to maintain collaboration and engagement with your staff? Or as a young professional are you feeling disengaged and left behind in your career? If so, keep reading. (If not, you might still learn something anyway.) Through collaboration, mentoring, and continued professional development, we can continue to grow and support each other, no matter what the pandemic throws at us. Engagement and growth in a pandemic
As a young professional, I can speak on behalf of how many of us are feeling. Many of us are beginning our careers trapped in cramped apartments with a few roommates. Or we are balancing parenting and working in the same small spaces. All the while having to adapt to a way of working that is essentially foreign to our industry. With an understanding that the pandemic will be with us for the long-term, we are are all adjusting to the new reality, including the work from home environment and dealing with Zoom fatigue. So, what have we learned thus far? We’ve learned that employees’ wants and needs are not different than they were before the pandemic. Young professionals are still seeking support and development in their careers. But now, we have added a virtual and remote twist to the “office life.”
It is crucial that managers understand that these recent changes are not just affecting companies, but employees as well, and perhaps especially young professionals. At the end of the day, we are humans going through a lot of unexpected life changes. In this article, I’m suggesting three things I think are critical for the continued success and well- being of our firms, and in particular, of our young professionals. They are collaboration, engagement, and professional development. If nothing else, I hope this article will prompt you to think about the young people in your firm and how their needs may be met. 1)Scheduling routine meetings to allow feedback and collaboration is critical for alignment around project goals. We may have gotten away
Alex Mandeville
See ALEX MANDEVILLE, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER NOVEMBER 30, 2020, ISSUE 1369
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